I think imagination and creativity are like wells that need to constantly be filled from an outside source. The way we can feed it is through reading, watching, thinking, writing and pondering.

I haven’t had much inspiration as of late and it has been a while since I have been on a week long hiatus from posting photographs/stories on Instagram. If today hadn’t been a day for my publicity team to release some content, I believe I might not have posted anything for another week or two.

Currently, my brain is just void of any ideas, stories and concepts. Maybe it is just mentally drained from the chaos from the first week of school or maybe it is because I’m still trying to tie some loose ends before the semester picks up speed.

Whatever it is, I need to get my sh** together quickly.

I hate the feeling of the lack of creativity and even though making videos is a type of creative outlet for me, it doesn’t trigger my brain as much as writing or reading does.

I need to focus on putting more concepts into my mind, playing around with ideas and stories, and maybe soon, I’d get a eureka moment for a story.

I am obsessed with Casey Neistat’s vlogs so when he said that he’ll be stopping them, I was crushed. His daily vlogs were daily doses of inspiration for me, motivating me to live the hustle life and to always put in the work.

So, I began to watch his interviews with people, his advice on life and success, and something he said resonated with me. It is that we no longer need the permission to create.

We no longer need the permission from other people to create.

Through his videos and vlogs, you can see him actualising that statement. He will do anything to get the shot, to film first and apologise later, to do the things that he set his mind to.

I suggest that you watch his interviews to truly appreciate the genius that is Casey Neistat.

I am definitely going to miss his vlogs but his decision to quit because it no longer brings any creative benefit to him is something that I totally admire and respect.

I’ve recently watched the video above which is part of a series by Chase Jarvis called “30 Days of Genius” (everyone should watch it).

This was a particular interview with Seth Godin who achieved many great things throughout his life thus far. In his interview, he talked about how it is important to know what you are doing something. He urged us to think about the intention of our work, especially in the creative world. We shouldn’t aim to be famous but aim to put work that matters.

He talked about permissionmarketing and the goal of a marketer or a creator is to not be tolerated but to be missed when they’re gone. E.g. instead of shouting and constantly advertising a particular product (people tolerate this), but instead, one should strive to produce quality content that people will miss when it is gone.

And that is only half of the video.

Seth Godin dropped wonderful advice that I believe is applicable to all of us, creators or not. Therefore, I urge everyone to watch the video.

Creating is a wonderful thing and I truly believe that deep inside, all of us are creators. We are lucky to be given this gift of being able to craft something out from the resources that are at our disposal; well, that was how technology came about with the coming of the stone spear. Anyway, the act of creating is amazing and to me, awe-inspiring: a pot from clay, a painting from canvas or a photograph from light. Personally, I am on a journey of honing my craft so that one day, I can be considered as a creative. I write blog posts and recently I have started to do vlogs. It might not seem much but what matters is the act of creating itself. It is unfortunate that many people do not practise this God-given gift and instead spend time watching funny videos and doing unproductive work. If only they knew the benefits of the act of creating.

One thing that I admire about creating is the act of creating itself. I admire the way a dancer put in hours into her routine and then spend another countless of hours into ensuring that the dance is perfect. I admire the videographer who is able to use his surroundings and with a tinge of skill and expertise, able to create a movie that is captivating to the audience. It just goes to show that these creatives put in the hard work and effort into honing their crafts and their act of creating and now, can be seen as achieving success.

That aside, I am delighted to hear that many successful creatives went through the same process, the process of creating and sharing and creating again. They would keep the process up for months and most of the time, years. They practised and honed their act of creating that when they reached success, to many others, it might seem like an overnight success which is absolutely not the case. Successful creatives are successful because they do not stop the act of creating, heck, most of them prioritises creating.

A take away that all of us should keep in mind is that the act of creating is an act that has to be practised countless times. We might be born with the gift of creating but if we do not exercise that muscle, we can never mature to have a skill capable of success.

Recently, in a daily vlog, Casey Neistat said that his advice for getting 3 million subscribers is to ‘Just Keep Uploading’. Well, you might think, why? What has that got to do with getting a tremendous amount of subscribers? Actually, that has everything to do with getting a lot of subscribers or for you in achieving any kind of success at all.

‘Create Content Consistently’ is a more general form of ‘Just Keep Uploading’. It is an advice that I am sure many creatives will give you when you ask them about how they achieve success. To consistently create content, one has to have a schedule of the content that is to be made and shared. One has to have an idea of the type of content one wants to make. For starters too, one might find it useful to have a period of time where one will upload or share their content, an ideal period of time is 30 days which is enough for momentum to step in.

But why?

Well, creating content consistently has wonderful benefits especially for aspiring artists or creatives. I’m sure all of us have heard the phrase, ‘Practise makes perfect’? Creating content consistently can be seen as just that, practise. What better way to practise their crafts by doing? Aside from just practising, through the act of creating and sharing your work consistently, one is able to audit and reflect on their past works to see what works and what did not. The data that they have gathered can then be used to further experiment with other styles or techniques to make their creations and content better. In the long run, the content created will have less of the poorer works and an amplified quality of the better ones.

You can see that if one is to create content consistently, no one else will gain more than the creator himself.

Personally, now, I have my own project to create content consistently and I embedded it into my 30-day challenges. For now, all I have to do is to post a blog article once a day for 30 days. So far, I am 23 days in and I am feeling confident that I will succeed and thus far, I am beginning to feel the gains from the consistent writing: an easier flow of ideas, frequent epiphany and eureka moments and I am more expressive in sharing my ideas.

It is wonderful to feel this way and I guess I will be continuing this habit for a long time to come.